About this Artist
Perry So, one of the inaugural Dudamel Conducting Fellows at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, received first prize at the Fifth International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in 2008 (held in St. Petersburg), only the third time the top prize had been awarded in the history of the competition.Recent seasons have seen So debut with the London, Japan, Zagreb, Seoul and Malaysian Philharmonics, the Milwaukee, New Zealand, Queensland and Asturias Symphony Orchestras, the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia in Moscow, and the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan (Taiwan Philharmonia), and conduct regular subscription concerts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
Born in Hong Kong in 1982, So graduated from Yale University in Comparative Literature. As an undergraduate at Yale, he began his conducting studies with James Sinclair, and was Music Director of the Saybrook Orchestra and the Opera Theatre of Yale College, leading productions of Mozart's Zauberflöte and Così fan tutte, Handel's Giulio Cesare and Britten's Turn of the Screw. He also developed an abiding interest for music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, often leading the Yale Collegium Musicum from the harpsichord. He subsequently studied conducting under Swiss pedagogue Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute.
He continues to collaborate frequently with young musicians, working with the Australian Youth Orchestra, Yale School of Music, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and in his own festival in the rural Chinese province of Anhui.In January 2012, he released his first commercial recording on the Oehms Classics label with the German violinist Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic in a program of American violin concertos.Perry So was named Musical America's New Artist of the Month in October 2009.